Reviews

Fishing Day by Shane W. Evans, Andrea Davis Pinkney

kitsuneheart's review against another edition

5.0

So, I'll preface my next statement by saying that I feel really awkward making this observation from a position of White privilege. But this book does a great job showing that often one of the best ways to help overcome prejudice and xenophobia is to reach out and find something in common. That's what this book is really all about. Thje narrator, Reenie, goes fishing with her mother. They have the ritual down, and seem to just send the fish flying into their hands, but nearby Peter Troop and his father struggle to get even a small catch, and they need to catch something if their family is going to eat. But Reenie can't help Peter, because she is Black and he is White, and interacting with Peter's father would not only hurt the family pride, but perhaps be dangerous.

The book has a nice, peaceful ending, which adults will recognize as not an END, in the sense of all being well in the world and Reenie coming out in victory, but more a beginning, as Peter Troop, independent of his father, learns about people firsthand, rather than from his community.

I'm not sure if this would do well as a book for a unit on racial prejudice, since it does really put a lot of pressure on Reenie to solve things, but I'd say it could be appropriate for the home. Parents, read this on your own before reading to your kids, to make sure you agree with how things are being portrayed.